Seaside

Merganser

Harbor seal

Green anemone

The ages of Western Gull
From back to front: juvenile, second year, adult

Crab shell

Lined shore crab 

An osprey having brunch:

Marine invertebrates

Flamboyant Cuttlefish:

Melibe, a sea slug:

Moon jellies: 

 

 

Aquarium creatures

 Feather stars (aka crinoids)

Underside of a starfish

(More below the fold)

Periphylla

 The helmet jelly Periphylla. 

Image © 2011 Deep Sea Conservation Coalition

Eoandromeda octobrachiata

Near the roots of the tree of life, we find a living spiral:

A 580-million-year-old fossil is casting doubt on the established tree of animal life. The invertebrate, named Eoandromeda octobrachiata because its body plan resembles the spiral galaxy Andromeda, suggests that the earliest branches in the tree need to be reordered, say the authors of study in Evolution and Development.
The researchers, led by paleontologist Feng Tang of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences in Beijing, believe that Eoandromeda is the ancient ancestor of modern ocean dwellers known as comb jellies — gelatinous creatures similar to jellyfish, but rounder and with eight rows of iridescent paddles along their sides. If they are right, it would be the oldest known fossil of a comb jelly. And that would support a rewrite of the animal tree. 

From Nature, via The Book of Barely Imagined Beings.

Cestum veneris

This beautiful, bizarre marine invertebrate (cool pictures here and here) is related to the comb jelly:

Comb jelly

It's hard to believe, but this video depicts a real, living animal, called a ctenophore or comb jelly. They are somewhat similar to jellyfish, but not actually related.